


Guardian Angel: B-Sides

by BleakCinema



Series: Guardian Angel [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Character Study, Discussion of Abortion, Dismemberment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time Bottoming, Hoosier Daddy, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Violence, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:18:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleakCinema/pseuds/BleakCinema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of moments from the rise and fall of Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison.</p>
<p>(Occurs before/after/during Guardian Angel)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic now comes with GORGEOUS fanart from DerpyMcButtface http://guobaa.tumblr.com/post/148539414643/fanart-for-bleakcinemas-heart-crushing-fic
> 
> (This is Bleak's humbled-beyond-reason face)

Moments I wanted to include or flesh out in Guardian Angel, but just plain didn’t have the chance to.  The response to GA was so overwhelming, that I really had to do this to show my gratitude.

 

__________

_Jumper_

 

Gabriel Reyes was going to murder absolutely everyone.

 

The hell he would bring down on the Zurich base would be biblical.  People would whisper fearfully to their loved ones in the dead of night, recalling his carnage.  There would be wailing.  There would be gnashing of teeth.  There would be suffering unknown by mortal man if Jack Morrison didn’t stop getting under his fucking feet every five minutes and let him get on with it, damnit.

 

The Strike Commander snapped his teeth in irritation as Jack wandered too close, over solicitous, with a blanket in hand.

 

“Enough already, _gringo_! I can make my own fucking nest,” Gabriel growled, low and throaty.

 

Jack stepped back quickly as if burned and his mate nobly resisted the urge to claw at his own face and roll his eyes in frustration.

 

He was just hitting the ninth month of this interminable pregnancy and it meant that both of their hormones were in overdrive.  Gabriel’s Omega hind-brain had him constantly jumping at even the smallest sounds, clutching protectively at his belly.  It had him perpetually on edge, trying endlessly to remind him of his delicate state (whereupon he told his hind-brain to stick THAT notion where the sun didn’t shine).  Worst of all, he’d entered his so-called ‘nesting phase’, a finicky urge that had him taking every spare linen he could find and situating it on the bed.  It was a stupid thing, but the instinctive mantra of ‘but, but, but’ wouldn’t leave his head until he at least put in a half-assed effort.  

 

It would have been bad enough had not _his_ new influx of pheromones triggered something downright obnoxious in Jack.  It turned his Earnest Alpha routine straight up to 11, urged him to anticipate Gabriel’s every need before he could even have it, the impulse made utterly annoying because if Gabriel needed something he could damn well do it himself.  Jack had become an insufferably oversized puppy nipping at his master’s heels, always in the way, but only out of love and loyalty.  It made the Strike Commander feel almost bad for snapping at him so frequently.  Almost.

 

If he were being logical, he’d step back and realize this was just as frustrating for Jack as it was for him.  One of the things his senior officer admittedly loved about him on a normal day was that he _could_ fend for himself.  To have some weird, vestigial, primal compulsion questioning everything he prided in his mate was singularly exhausting.  Jack was offended on Gabe’s behalf whenever he felt his hands itching to take something that looked heavy from the older man’s hands.  Gabriel knew all of that because he could see the little twitch of guilt at the corner of Jack’s mouth every time the Alpha caught himself on the edge of being overbearing.  Neither of them had ever been slaves to their anatomy, but anatomy didn’t really seem to get the memo.

 

Gabriel understood and in his more lucid moments, he could sympathise.

 

Right now, however, his ankles hurt, his back hurt, he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, everything inside him felt squashed, and he was restless.  His command had been passed temporarily to Jack last month for maternal leave and he had nothing to do but prowl around with his thoughts and all these fucking hormones.  Right now all he could do was build this utterly ridiculous nest in hopes that his brain would shut up for a few blessed seconds.  Right now all he could do was valiantly resist the urge to deck Jack if he came one step closer to him with that stupid blanket.

 

Jack blinked, bewildered.  He hadn’t even realized entirely what he was doing, going on autopilot.  Taking a deep breath, he walked over to the footlocker at the end of their bed and placed the blanket back where he’d found it.  He rubbed fitfully at the back of his neck, looking at his mate.  

 

Gabe had turned the stormcloud glare off of him and was back to grumpily arranging blankets on the bed.  Every once in awhile he’d stop, stare at the configuration like it had insulted his mother, mutter something scandalous in Spanish, and try again.  Nothing seemed to please him and it made him more and more enraged that nothing could please him.  The muscles along his spine were tense.  Contrary to dirty jokes and bigoted opinions from bygone years, Alphas and Omegas were hardly beholden to their biology save for things like heats, ruts, and birthing.  Even then, what primitive urges still existed could be tamped down with enough willpower, something Jack and Gabe had in spades.  Jack could understand his mate’s distress.

 

Both soldiers were out of their element.

 

In a fit of pique, the dark-skinned Omega gave up and sat down sharply on the bed, mussing his latest arrangement and giving a grand total of zero shits about it.  

 

His Alpha watched, a sad sort of affection in the blue wellspring of his eyes as Gabriel muttered mutinously at his stomach, “You are nothing but trouble, _nino._ ”

 

They were both exhausted.  

 

Jack stood in the middle of the room, fingers flexing.  He could stand still, but only if there was a purpose.  He liked having a purpose.  Standing idle wasn’t in his nature, especially not when he could see the bags under Gabriel’s eyes, especially not when he could feel the pent-up energy in his own bones.  They were on the brink of fighting more often than not, snapping and snipping at each other’s heels like territorial wolves as hormones fought it out with SEP training with their own stubborn personalities running sideline interference.  Neither of them were going to survive this last month without a white flag.

 

Gabriel let himself tune out the rest of the room.

 

He sat like a stone on the edge of the bed, feet firmly planted on the floor, elbows pushed into his knees.  He had his face in his hands, rubbing at his throbbing temples.  He could feel the unpleasant burn of tense muscles radiating out from back to belly in this position, but at least his feet hurt a bit less.  He was too much of a bull-headed son of a bitch to go on full bed rest as Angela had mildly suggested (but to be fair, she’d thrown it out there with the tone of a woman who knew she was going to be roundly ignored).  Practically everything hurt and he felt too warm.  

 

He grunted when he heard Jack’s boots shuffle from across the room.  The little sound cut through his exhaustion like a knife, unerringly drawing a snarl from him.

 

The steps faffed about long enough to put an unpleasant edge to the Omega’s headache before the started coming his way again.  He immediately tensed up.  It deepened the ache around his ribs.

 

“Jack, if you try to hand me something, I will rip your arm off and beat you with it, _pendejo_.”

 

It didn’t even budge the Alpha.  The stupid, stubborn, self-sacrificing little shit.

 

Gabriel lifted his head and glared through red-rimmed eyes, the deep brown-black of them gone muddy with fatigue.  He opened his mouth, jaw clicking, as he prepared to give the feckless Alpha what-for, having had his fill with badgering for the day.  Instead, he was surprised to see that instead of yet ANOTHER useless blanket or some half-squashed pillow, the blonde was holding a jumper the Omega hadn’t seen in months.  It was at least three shades darker blue than Jack’s eyes were, pilled up from over-wearing with a hole worn in the right cuff.  Jack put his thumb through it sometimes.  The collar was fraying a little and Gabriel knew from experience it had gone jersey-soft.

 

His Alpha only tended to wear it when he was truly relaxed, like an invisible and unspoken barrier between his work life and the world outside.  The last time Gabriel had even seen it was when they’d had leave at Christmas and had gone back to the Morrison family farm in Indiana.  He remembered specifically that the younger man had worn it last as they sat around a bonfire out back of the weathered old house, smelling of spice, and pheromones, woodsmoke, and home.  

 

Jack said nothing as he held it out, waiting for Gabriel to make up his mind before he dared open his mouth.

 

Tentatively, Gabe took it, pinching it between two fingers as if he expected the thing to bite him, “What’s this?”

 

“A sweater,” Jack said with a perfect deadpan he only used when he thought he was being a funny fucker.

 

Gabriel said something incredibly unflattering in Spanish and he relented, “...I read something somewhere once.  Said something about scent memory can be calming.”

 

His tone was halting, like he thoroughly expected talking about instinct or anything like it to send his mate into a full-blown blue funk.

 

Instead, the other man took it entirely and sniffed at it before dropping it down into the mess of a nest he’d made behind him.  He cocked his head one way, then the other, considering the new addition.  Slowly, he lowered himself down to the bed, curling as much as he could manage on his side and letting out a sigh, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.  The room stilled around the pair before, without a word, Gabe patted the bed behind him, scooting in the narrow bunk to make room for his Alpha.  

 

As Jack settled in behind him, all muscle and hard edges and chapped lips on the back of his neck, he didn’t thank him.  His mate didn’t ask for thanks either.  For once, they were content just to exist in the same space, giving and taking in equal parts.

 

__________

 

_Four Things_

 

In that moment, Jack was grateful for precisely three things.

 

The first was that, whether a fluke of their biology or some blessed twist of fate, Gabriel went into labor early.  Weeks early.

 

It had scared the ever-loving shit out of the Indiana native when he’d returned from morning drills to find Gabriel lying in bed, hissing in pain and absolutely wrung out with sweat.  The puddle he’d nearly stepped in when he walked through the door, along with the sodden trousers and underpants that had been hastily shucked off, told him everything he needed to know about the situation in 30 seconds flat.  He’d been pinging Angela on his comm before his mate even had time to growl out his name.

 

This, of course, led him to the second thing he was thanking his lucky stars for and that was Angela Ziegler, their own angel of mercy.  She’d been a constant presence ever since the first time Jack had badgered his mate into going to the clinic.  She’d gone to bat for them to the UN itself when they’d tried (unsuccessfully) to press Gabriel into a decision to abort.  She’d taken care of all their pre-natal check-ups and even stood in as a mediator during those days when hormones proved too much and the pair had very nearly taken each other out in a very un-romantic sense.  She’d kept of their little charade to keep the Security Council off their backs and now at the eleventh hour she’d arrived in five minutes flat, unflappable and no-nonsense.  

 

For all that she was an angel, a devil lived inside her too.

 

She had honed Jack’s focus with a crisp warning that if he couldn’t be useful, she would kick him out and help Gabriel through the whelping by herself.  It had only taken her another five minutes to have everything sterile and to have Gabriel so thoroughly examined that she’d been able to estimate how much longer he had.  She’d brooked no argument and not even the fiercest snarl or pearly flash of teeth had dissuaded her.  The medic had even gone so far as to swat the Omega on the hip when he’d dared to snap at her hand, too lost in a wave of painful contractions to reign himself in.

 

It had been enough to bring him back to his senses to a point where he only swore colourfully and kept the teeth away.

 

That was hours ago now and they were in a lull between proverbial storm clouds.

 

Gabriel was a sweaty mess, lying on his back with a death grip on Jack’s hand that only relaxed at intervals.  He was breathing heavily, but not fully panting in anguish like he had been.  Exhaustion was starting to get to him, the muscles of his thighs juddering softly every once in awhile.  During the whole ordeal, he had refused to shout, refused to scream or make any sound other than a grunt.  Jack marveled at him, running a cool rag over his brow from time to time and offering him ice chips Angela had sent him for around hour two.

 

This was the third thing Jack was breathlessly grateful for, this powerhouse of an Omega, his partner, his friend.  Even when he shook from fatigue, he soldiered through, tirelessly laboring to bring their son into the world.  Seeing how admirably he bore the strain made it easy for Jack to ignore the way the bones of his hands ground together when Gabriel squeezed on the cusp of the next contraction, made it easy to forget his own weariness.  All he had to do was watch the Omega’s face as his brow creased deeply, fighting down a shout of pain, to forget the mantra of worries that pounded in his skull.

 

When the time grew near and the contractions stopped being many and instead turned into one long, unending ripple of pain, he trained all of his attention on his partner.

 

Gabe let out a hiccuping gasp and regarded Jack with a gimlet glare, “You are NEVER fucking me again, _cabron_.”

 

It surprised a laugh out of the Alpha and he took a chance, leaning in to kiss his mate’s fevered brow, “I can handle that.”

 

Then Angela’s clarion voice demanded that Gabriel push and they both descended into the maelstrom.

 

***

 

In the end, after hours of blood and sweat and pain, there was Ira.

 

Ira Morrison-Reyes.

 

There was a tiny, cinnamon-tinted, fey thing lying in the muscled crook of Gabriel’s arm.  The pup had the first licks of chocolate curls whisping up across the smooth curve of his small head, a button nose that neither of them knew for the life of them where it had come from, 10 fingers, 10 toes, and the bluest damn eyes.  He’d come out howling, already a fighter, but now lay dozing in against his mother’s chest.  

 

As he sat there in the still, holding his sleeping mate’s hand and running a thumb ever so gently over his newborn son’s brow, Jack realized there were four things he was grateful for.

 

__________

 

_Pity the Tiger_

 

Gabriel sat with the room’s only chair turned to the reinforced window to look out at what passed for their world.  Before they’d mated, they’d had a basic double barrack room with enough for two soldiers to move around in and no window.  After they’d filed the paperwork that went with a formal mating, they’d been moved to this one...only slightly larger.  Gabriel was thankful for the window.  It gave him something to focus on as he turned his back resolutely to the rest of the room, shutting out everything else.  

 

He had Ira in his arms, only two months old now and so very small still.  He was quiet, nursing, and watching Gabe with deep cerulean eyes that were too clever for their own damn good.  Too attentive by half.  The soldier ran a soft hand in fitful swoops over that tiny head, being very careful not to disturb his son.

 

He resolutely didn’t look behind him.  

 

He absolutely refused to acknowledge the noticeable dent in the door of their room where he’d laid his fist so hard into it he could still feel the impact in his bones.

 

He certainly didn’t let himself look at where his mate was sitting on the floor, back to the dented door with his golden head in his hands.

 

Neither of them dared speak right now.

 

Blackwatch.  

 

Just like that, with one decision from on high, Gabriel was no longer the Strike Commander of Overwatch.  Oh sure, it had been done with all due decorum, a proper meeting and briefing, just the two of them with the head of the Security Council.  They’d left Ira with Angela, perfectly professional, knowing that as long as they held positions in Overwatch, their duty would have to come first.  It was the compromise they’d made.  So they left their son behind and reported to their meeting right on time as was expected of the Strike Commander and his senior officer.

 

When the first thing the head of the Security Council did was inquire after the baby, Gabriel felt his heart sink like a stone.

 

A man didn’t live very long in his line of work without being able to smell a trap.

 

When Jack tensed slightly next to him, he could tell his mate had the same shit-reeking odor in his nose too.  

 

Both of them kept up the outward appearance of calm.

 

Gabriel had seen a tiger trap once on a mission, an old forgotten thing from a bygone war when all men had to fight against was each other.  It was an insidiously clever thing, filled with sharp stakes.  If the fall didn’t stun the beast, it would struggle on those spikes, doing itself more and more damage until it had killed itself in its fury.  Standing in front of that lacquered desk with the politician standing behind it, all spider-like intent, Gabriel pitied the tiger.

 

It had all gone downhill so quickly, but so prettily.  The man behind the desk concealed the points of his stakes with buzzwords and distracting phrases, uttering things like “a shift in priorities” and “much more important things to worry about”.  Every razor edge was blunted with some pedestrian sentiment like “a new initiative that suits your unique talents”.

 

Jack and Gabriel were not stupid men.

 

They saw behind the smoke screen, realized that every silky attempt at an ego stroke could only be translated one way, “We know what you did.”

 

They hadn’t avoided the Security Council’s judgement entirely, only forestalled it until they could dream up a fitting punishment for Gabriel’s insubordination and here it was.

 

They took Strike Commander away from him.  They did it with such effortless political grace that there was not a word either of them could say.  They claimed it was in deference to his dedication to parenthood.  They claimed that he had demonstrated a laudable ability to operate covertly, a skill that Overwatch found itself in need of to keep peace  now that the Omnic Crisis had been averted.  They were murdering him with accolades and it was all Gabriel could keep still to avoid killing himself in the trap they had laid for him so masterfully.

 

In his head, Jack had already been writing his transfer paperwork to Blackwatch, not forgetting how he had promised his mate when they’d started down this road that he would follow the Omega led.  He was so naive, so arrogant, to even imagine the UN wouldn’t have considered his role in the insubordination.  In the same breath they’d taken Strike Commander from Gabriel, Jack found the mantle on his shoulders, pinned under the weight of it, unwilling and gobsmacked.  They cited how notably well he'd stood as acting Strike Commander while his mate was out of commission, telling him how he had impressed his superiors with his ability to lead.  They were talking about Jack, but the Alpha knew very well they were speaking directly to Gabriel.  He felt his stomach twist nauseously when they used him as a weapon to punish the mother of his child.

 

More platitudes came, talk of a public ceremony.  

 

Jack didn’t dare look at Gabriel.  He could hardly breathe.  His promise had been broken for him.  How could he ever follow his mate when his mate had been made the Commander of a team whose pure purpose was to operate in places Overwatch could not be?  Now as Strike Commander of Overwatch itself, Jack felt the schism keenly.  

 

Neither Alpha nor Omega dared step down from the ‘honor’ they’d been granted, knowing it for what it truly was and knowing the repercussions if they so much as tried would be far, far worse.

 

In the silence of their own quarters, Gabriel was drifting until he felt a tug on his nipple and winced a bit.  It brought him back into focus, dragged his mind kicking and screaming back to all the things he’d been trying to leave behind for a blessed moment.  He ran a gun-calloused thumb over Ira’s brow, realizing all this meant for his relationship both with mate and child.  How much of his life would he have to hide from them now that he was the commander of a black ops unit? How long would he be forced away from his infant son? His heart clenched when he considered the danger of the missions he’d be running from here on in.

 

Death had never frightened Gabriel truly, but leaving Ira behind put ice in his veins where blood had once flowed.

 

From behind him, he heard Jack mutter, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

 

He sounded wrecked.

 

Gabe looked down at the baby against his chest, lost himself in blue.  

 

If they hadn’t played the Security Council, hadn’t lied and exploited the loopholes, their son would have been lost before he’d ever drawn breath.  A fierce emotion welled in Gabriel’s chest, an electrifying mix of possessiveness and pride and love that was more than hormones.  When he placed his choices and their outcomes side by side, he knows the one he had made was right and he would make it again a hundred times.

 

His voice was even when he finally replied, “I’m not.”

 

__________

 

_Author’s Notes_

 

 

  * __I know this came out quick, but these were all things I wanted to include in Guardian Angel or only got to gloss over.  I’ll add more, I’m sure.  I’ve got a lot of headcanon rattling around.__


  * _A Tiger Trap or a Trapping Pit is a deep hole lined with spikes on the bottom.  A lot of different pits for hunting animals exist, but these were particularly nasty and also employed in warfare._


  * _Yes, Ira was a premature birth.  However, the UN, much like Baskin Robbins, always finds out._


  * _I don’t want the UN to come off as total hand-wringing assholes, so I’ll offer a brief explanation: Yes, for the purposes of this story, Gabriel’s assignment to Blackwatch IS a punishment for insubordination.  However, he is still commander as he is actually good at his job.  Jack is placed as Strike Commander in part to ‘divide and conquer’, but also because he really does suit the job.  You don’t get to be a leader of the free world by cutting off your nose to spite your face._


  * _I am honestly STUNNED by the reaction to Guardian Angel.  I hear your comments and I’m thinking deeply about them.  Who knows what I’ll incorporate as I continue/if I continue to write the B Sides?_
  * __As with before, I'll read this over a few times and fix my mistakes as I find them.__


  * _Love you, OverNerds._



 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Jack's bruise and where it came from.

_ Fire in the Blood _

 

It was getting on late into summer when Ira’s grumpy old pick-up started acting like she was going to give up the ghost.  She complained more than usual, chugged in fits and starts, and every day was a new exciting guessing game of if she was going to start for him at all.  The pickup was his first car ever, second hand even when he’d bought it for himself with over a year’s worth of scraped together savings when he was 16.  The idea of losing the loyal old rustbucket did funny things to his heart, so he’d made the decision to suck it up and make the long trip into town to see the mechanic.  Sure, he could do his own maintenance on the old girl, but from the sound of her she was in desperate need of something more than the band-aids and quick patches he could offer.

 

Luckily he had good old Mr. Smith.

 

Mr. Smith had been the one to sell him the truck three or four years back for what amounted to a song.  Maybe he’d seen the look in Ira’s eye, the intense longing.  Maybe he just felt like throwing the struggling kid with the smudged face a bone.  Who knew? He’d warned him the truck needed love and Ira hadn’t relented, partly out of the knowledge he couldn’t afford something better and partly out of his peculiar affinity for lost, broken things.  In the end, Mr. Smith had given him what amounted to a smile, accepted the paltry sum, and had spent the better part of a week’s worth of evenings with the teenager to bring the vehicle up to something approaching road-worthy.  Even now he’d happily trade a few hours company and hard work in the shop for any repairs the truck needed.

 

Ira was pretty damn sure Mr. Smith was what you’d call a friend, and a good one at that.

 

His shop was a run-of-the-mill cinder-block affair on the outside of town, painted with the mechanic’s modest logo across the side so anyone going either direction could see.  One end of the building had an actual door and held Mr. Smith’s tiny office.  The rest of the oblong structure was all hollowed out and filled up with tools and parts and all the trappings of his profession.  Two massive rolling doors covered the bays, enough to accommodate two larger vehicles comfortably and still allow room to work around.  There was a fenced in area out back where the junkers sat so that parts could be scavenged or finished cars could be set out safely to wait for their owners.

 

Ira pulled the truck up, wincing as she made a snuffling pop noise, and eased her into one of the empty bays.  Once parked, he hopped out and shoved his hands into his pockets, striding to the internal door to the office so he could shoulder it open and greet Mr. Smith.  He popped one hand out when he got there, rapping politely on the wood with the knuckles of the hand he’d freed.

 

“Mr. Smith? Hey, it’s Ira.  Mind if I come in?” He called out.

 

There was silence inside.

 

Ira’s dark brows beetled together in confusion.  He called once more, hearing nothing but silence and more silence.  That was truly strange.  Mr. Smith was a creature of habit if ever there was one.  If the bays were open and he wasn’t in the garage, then he was in his office.  If he wasn’t in his office, then he was in the bays.  The only other place he would have possibly been was in the junker yard out back, but he would have easily seen Ira approaching from there and come to greet him like he always did.  The complete lack of response made the young man nervous, cast his mind back to darker times in a past world that no longer existed, a country far from here, a life before he was a farmer’s boy.  

 

A shiver went down his spine and he thumbed under his nose, trying to convince himself he was being ridiculous.  Nothing sinister happened in nowhere Indiana.

 

Ira walked back into the bays, heading for the back door out to the junker yard.  Maybe Mr. Smith was just caught up in something.  He nearly bit the pavement hard when the sole of his work boot hit something slick on the floor, skidding out almost comically, forcing him to bend his knees and tilt so he didn’t bring his full weight down on his coccyx.  He wound up in an awkward crouch, trying to figure out what had happened when he spied a puddle of oil on the floor.  That wasn’t so strange considering he was walking through a mechanic’s workshop.  The part that chilled his blood was that the puddle dragged out into a long stream, cutting a clear path out to the yard.

 

A loud clang echoed from outside and Ira’s heart constricted.

 

With more care than sense, he pelted for the door and threw it open, his sky-blue gaze raking the back lot.  He lingered over patched up, rusted out heaps, got caught on piles of forgotten tires scrubbed with dust.  The glare from a spider-webbed windshield distracted him when it caught the corner of his left eye.  He hissed and squinted, turning his face away just in time to catch distinct movement.  

 

An arm, swinging in an arc to the horizon.  

 

A lead pipe in its grip.

 

Ira watched in sick fascination as the arm descended, frozen with doubtful horror until another clang echoed, cold and harsh, through the air followed by rowdy laughter.

 

The fury came in stages, righteous and hot enough to chase away the cold dread.  First came the low whine in his ears as adrenaline dropped like a stone in his belly, echoed in counterpoint by the furious thunder of his heart pushing blood through his veins.  Next came the tunnel vision bestowed only to the truly enraged, where everything else washes away and all that is left is a diamond-edged focus.  Then his feet were moving, not so much running as  _ stalking _ over to where three goons were half-concealed behind what had once been a very unfortunate looking family minivan.  On the ground, Mr. Smith was curled up in a protective huddle, the plate that passed for his face curled into one arm to protect the delicate sensors there.  Already one of his legs was busted and some of the circuitry in his shoulder was sparking.  He wasn’t even fighting back.

 

How long had this been going on?!

 

Sickened by the depth of his rage, the young man shouted, “What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?”

 

The two men stopped, turning to look at the newcomer and Ira realized with dizzy loathing that he knew every face there.  They were people from his graduating year at school, two men and a girl, two towering Alphas and a cut-throat Omega.  The men both wore boots (military issue), soldiers on leave now.  They’d come back home after training or maybe they were on leave after a deployment, but there they were in their tight buzz-cuts and dust-stained boots, with their ape-like expressions of surprise.  The girl was sitting on the hood of a gutted muscle car, watching and snapping her gum idly like there weren’t two grown men beating the town mechanic half to death with those heavy boots and a fucking lead pipe.  Mr. Smith looked up pathetically at Ira and his head jerked back towards the door like he was telling the young man to run.

 

Like hell.

 

Ira squared up his stance and watched as monkey-shock turned into dawning familiarity, recognition.  

 

He growled again, “I repeat, what do you think you’re doing?”

 

The one with the pipe (Jed, Ira’s mind supplied), settled he weapon on his shoulder and put a boot on Mr. Smith’s back so he couldn’t escape, a slimy grin creeping across his features, “What’s it look like, mutt?”

 

The nickname stung like a hornet, but Ira just added the insult to the growing list and didn’t rise to it yet, “Dunno.  Must be seeing things, because I coulda sworn I was just watching two servicemen brutalizing a civilian.”

 

That got a reaction, “Yeah, must be seeing things then, because this ain’t a civilian.  It’s an Omnic.”

 

The anger ratcheted up another notch.  Ira could feel it crawling up his spine and settling like a migraine behind his eyes.

 

He cursed Jed’s mother in the lowest Spanish he could recall, “ _ Idiota _ , That’s Mr. Smith.  He’s been the mechanic here since we were all in diapers.  Seriously, what the hell? What did he ever do to you?”

 

The other one, the one with only his fists, barked, “You haven’t seen what we’ve seen out there in the real world, townie.  You seen the shit that’s going down in Russia? This thing is lucky we didn’t just shoot it.  Now get the fuck out of here unless you feel like joining it.”

 

“Please Ira...just go,” Mr. Smith said from the ground, his voice modulator sounding rough and gritty.

 

Jed planted his boot on Mr. Smith’s face plate, stomping almost hard enough to crack it, “Shut up.”

 

“Get the hell off of him! You’re gonna kill him!” Ira shouted, taking a threatening step forward, unable to help himself out of fear for his friend.

 

From her spot on the car, the girl snapped her gum and laughed, “Jeeze, but you’re thick, Morrison.  You can’t kill an Omnic.  They’re like talking toasters.  Calm down.”

 

“Morrison-REYES,” Ira snarled, turning an icy blue glare on her so intense she shifted on the hood.

 

The pipe tapped him on the shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, momma’s boy.  Kind of makes sense you going to bat for an Omnic and all.  You’ve got traitor in your blood, don’tcha?”

 

Everything narrowed down to that single, white-hot moment, teetering on the edge of oblivion.

 

“...What did you say to me?”

 

Jed snorted, “Clean the cow shit out of your ears and listen up, townie.  We’ve all seen the Blackwatch reports.  We know what went on.  What I SAID to you is your mommy was a --”

 

He never got to finish.

 

Lit from head to toe with a rage that burned under his skin, Ira had snatched the pipe out of Jed’s hand where it rested on his shoulder and cracked him solidly across the face with it, aiming to silence, aiming to hurt, aiming to do serious damage.  He felt like he could breathe fire, so hot was his flesh with the angry inferno consuming his blood.  When Jed was down, he kicked him, throwing away the led pipe and listening to it clang off in the distance.  When the soldier under his sole grunted, cursed him, and held what was no doubt a broken nose, Ira put a boot on him to mirror what he’d done to Mr. Smith before.

 

Some distant part of him wondered if his father would be ashamed of him.

 

He shouted down at him, “How does it feel, huh? How does it fucking feel?”

 

He’d totally forgotten about the other guy.

 

Ira went down like a sack of potatoes when a meaty fist slammed on the back of his head, dangerously near the base of his neck.  It stunned him long enough that it gave the three jackals circling an opening.  He caught a boot to the face, right up against his eye socket, and for a minute he was sure he’d lost half his face from the impact, the whole area going from electric with agony to numb within seconds.  Untrained and knocked off kilter in the face of two pissed off Alphas, Ira never even had a chance.  He had time to feel a couple of kicks land in his ribs and a smaller foot go way too near his kidneys for comfort before the world was graying out.  The last things he knew were a ham of a fist wrapping in his hair and dragging him next to Mr. Smith.  He blacked out to the sound of his friend calling his name.

 

***

 

He returned by degrees.

 

First he became aware of dirt and rock and concrete under his shoulder, digging into where his military coat’s sleeve had rucked up.  He felt a burn on the skin, definitely road rash from where he’d been dragged.  The aching heat from his bruises came next, throbbing with his pulse.  After that came sound, the lonely whish of the wind forcing itself through cast-off hubcaps and naked, rusting axles.  Smell chased after it, the acidic tang of oil and blood mixing in his nostrils until he could hardly separate the two.  Sight was last and even then, only a half measure, one of his eyes swelled shut by the vicious kick he’d taken earlier.

 

One blue eye slitted open, taking in the twilight that had settled.  He expected to see Mr. Smith still lying across from him, but relief settled in his gut when the Omnic wasn’t there.

 

Slowly, painfully, Ira tried to sit up.  He groaned and a gentle metal hand settled on his bicep, “Please stay still.  I do not know how severe your injuries are.  I have called emergency services and they will be here shortly.”

 

“Mr. Smith?” the young man coughed out, rolling onto his back at least to see that his friend was sitting lopsided against a tower of tires.  He tried for humor, “What...what took you so long?”

 

The Omnic’s face tilted in what Ira had learned to associate with guilt.

 

Mr. Smith gestured down to the smoking tangle of his left leg, “I was...somewhat hindered in reaching the phone.”

 

The anger came back in a sickening wash, “... _ dios mio,  _ what did they do to you?”

 

“No worse than they did to you.  You shouldn’t have stayed, Ira,” his manufactured voice carried deep concern on a level that his young friend didn’t think some HUMANS were capable of.

 

Ira peered at him stubbornly out of the one eye he could open, “They would have killed you.  Christ, I should report them.  You could have died.”

 

“Calm down,” Mr. Smith soothed, watching him rile himself up again, “I am not going to die.  I wish you had not stayed...but I am grateful that you did.”

 

“Should have never happened at all.  They were soldiers...that’s not how a soldier is supposed to act....”

 

Ira’s feeble protest, more musing than anything, faded into the low wail of an ambulance heading their way.  He listened to the sound as it knifed through his aching head.  He silently compared the animals who had almost murdered his friend with the men and women he’d known as a child.  He thought of Winston, the gentle giant.  He thought of noble old Reinhardt, stoic Ana, and warm Miss Angie.  He remembered his father and mother showing him scars where they had literally taken bullets for others, the pink puckered flesh holding no horror to his young eyes.  They were badges of honor.  Those towering giants of morality, the bastions of all that was right in his childlike world...they were what true soldiers were to him.

 

He heard the crunching of the ambulance’s wheels on the gravel past the fence and tried to pinpoint again exactly when the world had stopped making sense.

  
  
  


__________

 

_ Author’s Notes _

 

 

  * __Dear Overwatch fandom, you are super bad for me.  So bad for me.  I have a Daredevil fic I have a desperate need to finish and this has taken over.  I love you all, but you’ve ruined me.__


  * _This story takes place roughly two weeks before Guardian Angel proper._


  * _For anyone who is wondering (because I may have been a bit vague), yes.  Ira’s genetics are a close mirror to Jack and Gabe’s POST-SEP.  Baby Enhanced Soldier, basically.  Still doesn’t mean he’s going to win outnumbered in a fist fight against trained soldiers._


  * _For every commenter on this and Guardian Angel, THANK YOU.  I read your words and I am genuinely touched (when I’m not laughing out loud at the stuff you guys come up with).  You’re real inspirations._


  * _Love you, OverNerds._



 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwatch begins to damage Gabriel, Jack tries to make sure he's not losing his mate, and the story of Ira's hat.

_Do Not Disturb_

 

Gabriel lingered in the carrier long after the final shudders of landing had ceased.

 

He stayed in the carrier after the last of his rowdy team of monsters had stomped off, long overdue for a shower and a kip.

 

He sat in one of the row seats, eyes locked on the middle distance, his hands knotted in front of him and his elbows on his knees while he just focused on breathing in and out.  He was statue-still, his chest barely rising and falling with his shallow breathing.  His figure was a rictus of exhaustion, soul-deep and scarring.  In and out.  

 

He knew he’d have to get up soon.

 

He’d have to get up out of his seat and shake off two miserable weeks of grit, grime, smog, and paranoia bred in the slums of Beijing.  He’d have to haul himself out of this seat and write mission reports, cooly detaching himself from everything he had just seen.  He’d stamp confidential across heavily encrypted files where he explained away the shit he’d buried himself in up to the elbows.  He’d have to shrug off memories of percussive-blast blood patterns blown up shitty yellowed walls, tucking them neatly into little boxes marked ‘do not disturb’.  He’d have to shower and pretend he didn’t feel the phantom putrefying gore congealing under his blunted nails.  He’d go and hold his son and imagine he wasn’t dirtying his miracle with the filth on his skin.

 

Gabriel would go and sit in silence with his mate, summon up a sort of gladness to be back near him, but never meeting those guileless blue eyes.

 

He had a life to get on with.  He couldn’t do that sitting here.

 

Something was disconnected in him.  He couldn’t get the signals from his head to his feet, as if he’d disowned his own body.

 

A bang and a shout from outside the carrier (one of the maintenance team, just a member of the maintenance team) started him into motion.  He was on his feet before he even realized it, hand twitching for the pistol still strapped neat and clean into the nylon holster bound up around his thigh.  His mouth twitched in disdain at his own weakness and he ran a hand over his neatly kept beard.  He mastered himself, put his shoulders up and back, taking measured steps down the gantry and into the hangar.  He was the Commander of Blackwatch.

 

He was happy to pretend that this was the reason none of his subordinates dared approach him when he passed on his way out.

 

Better his position than the terrible coldness he hadn’t quite managed to banish from the hard set of his eyes.

 

He focused on the heavy, reverberating tattoo of his boots on the floor.  He focused on his breathing.  In and out.  He ordered the world around him into tidy lines; duties, schedules, expectations, requirements.  He’d debrief with Jack -- with the Strike Commander -- tonight.  He’d write his formal reports tomorrow, the ones his mate would see and the ones that would go into a different set of hands entirely.  Then a day of rest.  Then back to drills with the miscreants he had been shepherding for six months.  Simple.  Orderly.  Full.  No idle time for his thoughts to backslide to a half-lit room where a woman cried in a language he’d never learned.

 

His throat closed a little and he balled a fist as if he could crush the sentiment in his own iron grip.  

 

Gabriel was the picture of cool calm by the time he reached his shared quarters, his head in quiet boxes.

 

Do not disturb.

 

***

 

Jack sat on the bed in their quarters, one leg jigging up and down as the nervous energy threatened to overwhelm him.  The last sit-rep he’d gotten placed the return carrier back in the hangar before 18:00.  He’d finished his paperwork like a man possessed and cleared his schedule for something he’d vaguely labeled as ‘debriefing’.  It wasn’t technically a lie.  His mate, the Commander of Blackwatch, was returning from a prolonged sting operation in China today and he _was_ expected to debrief him.  It was one of Blackwatch’s first field runs and nobody would blame the Strike Commander for taking extra care with assessing its success.

 

Not that anyone on his strike team would blame him anyway, willing to slant their gazes elsewhere when it came to a mated pair reuniting.

 

So the Strike Commander had fled his office, unable to bear the idea of greeting his mate from across the expanse of office furniture and rank and professional expectation.  He’d made a quick stop by the Med Bay to check up on Angela and Ira, finding his son happily perched on the Swiss medic’s lap while she scrolled through schematics for pending upgrades to next generation of biotic packs.  He’d held his little boy for a few precious moments, listening to him coo and babble, cradling him up against his chest while he’d asked his friend if she’d mind terribly watching him for the night, that he had something he needed to do.

 

He wasn’t sure if she’d seen the tension in his shoulders or the pleading in the azure of his eyes, but she’d relented with a fond smile.

 

Jack had relinquished his son back to the medic with a soft kiss to that warm, chubby little cheek, promising them both that he’d make time.  He would.

 

Now here he was, sitting on the bed in his stripped down basic black uniform, just a pair of heavy trousers and a short-sleeved undershirt, the Overwatch logo shining like a beacon from the bicep.  He couldn’t stomach the thought of greeting Gabriel in his Strike Commander uniform.  He was Strike Commander Morrison to his mate too much as it was, the gulf between them fissured open by their new positions yawning a little wider with every passing week.  Just once, he wanted to be Jack.  More than that, he wanted to be Jack _and_ Gabriel the way they hadn’t been since Ira was born.  They’d mated during a rut, no time for courtship or anything outside of the vaguely antagonistic flirting they’d tormented each other with before years before it had all come to a head.

 

Jack wanted a little time.  It was their most precious, rare commodity these days.  He wanted time to just _be_ with his mate again.  He wanted to move slow.  He wanted to make Gabriel feel special.

 

Most of all, he didn’t want to lose him.

 

That’s all he felt like he was doing since Gabriel had been appointed to Blackwatch, losing him by inches every day.

 

Outside the room, he heard heavy boots and picked up a faint scent of spice and skin that belonged uniquely to Gabriel Reyes, notes of it drifting up above the cloying jostle of smells that made up the Zurich base.  Unconsciously, he drew himself up like he was sitting for an inspection, swallowing thickly.  He pinned his gaze on the door, waiting anxiously for it to open.  His pulse picked up, fluttering in his throat.

 

The door slid open after pinging a low tone and there he was.

 

Jack rose to his feet on an impulse, holding himself back from just going to Gabriel, following that familiar form like a lodestone.

 

Gabriel saw him standing there and they both froze, sizing each other up.  Their eyes locked; tired, distant darkness and bright, pathetically hopeful blue.  Neither of them dared to move, the moment fragile as the soap bubbles Jack had chased as a child.  He needed for Gabriel to be the one to make the first move.  Gabriel needed to find his footing.  He hadn’t been prepared for this.  There was something painfully intimate about Jack standing there, stripped of his colors and insignia of rank, with that _look_ on his face.  Had his lover always looked so pale? So pure? So unstained?

 

So tired?

 

He smelled the Alpha’s anxiety in the air, sour and faintly like ozone on the back of his tongue.  It drew him fully in the room, letting the door shut behind him.

 

His voice was smoky and rough when he spoke at first, “...Where’s Ira?”

 

The Alpha replied, soothing and soft and a little unsure, “With Angela.  I asked her to keep him for tonight…”

 

It was a hand reaching across the chasm that separated them.  To Gabriel’s afflicted sight, it seemed so damn far away.

 

He turned his gaze to the side, setting down his kit bag by the door and veering towards their lavatory, “I’m going to shower and go see him.”

 

His mate mate a thin, strangled sound before a powerful hand wrapped around his bicep, arresting his progress, “Gabe…”

 

The hard-bitten LA native fought down his impulsive urge to attack at the sudden, unannounced touch.  He accepted the smell of home, let it sink down past the scar tissue in his brain.  No matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t smell the stink of exotic cigarette smoke or blood.  With a great force of will, he calmed himself, still not quite looking at the father of his child.

 

“Come on, Jack.  I know you’re big on the boy scout schtick, but I’m fucking exhausted and I want to see my son.  We can debrief later.”

 

When Jack spoke again, his deep voice was almost...shy, “We can.”

 

He didn’t let go.

 

Finally, Gabriel raised his eyes to make contact and almost choked on the unadulterated _longing_ scrawled across his mate’s face, “...Jack?”

 

“I just wanted some time with you.  I need you.”

 

It was so blazingly honest that the older man felt stripped naked under it.  

 

He closed his posture, turning his shoulder away from the blonde, away from the desire he saw there.  Some irrational part of his brain whispered in his ear like a demon that he couldn’t let him see.  Maybe there was something he’d forgotten to scrub away in their grimy safe house shower.  Maybe Jack would see.  Better to hold him at arm’s length until all the evidence was gone...until he didn’t hear her screaming in the silence between breaths anymore.

 

He snorted, trying to unseat his mate with his usual blunt sarcasm, “ _Lo siento, nino bonito_ , but I’m still wrecked down south of the border.  I was serious about you never fucking me again.”

 

It didn’t even register, those clear eyes full of earnest, bald truth, “I remember.”

 

Something in his tone, wanting and bare, knocked Gabriel back.  How was this hick constantly taking him off his guard? How did he squeeze in through the cracks of his carefully constructed walls so easily? A man would have to be deaf, blind, and fucking _stupid_ not to understand his intent.

 

“Jack.”

 

The blonde turned and walked to their basic bedside table, model standard, and slid open the single drawer at the top.  It would have taken the restraint of an angel not to watch his ass in the seat of those uniform trousers as he walked.  Gabriel was so far from the Holy Host it was laughable.  He let his gaze linger of the rise of his mate’s rear, followed up the lean muscles of his back, eyes trailing ever up until he saw what he had pulled out of the drawer while the older man was distracted with his perusal.  It was a small non-descript bottle of lubricant, so unassuming in those deceptively powerful hands, but promising so much.

 

Almost as promising as the dusky flush that had started to chase across the sculpted line of his cheekbones.

 

“Partners.  I remember that too,” he murmured in that broad Indiana accent of his.

 

There was that hand reaching out across the chasm again.

 

This time, God help him, Gabriel reached back.

 

He closed the gap between them until he was looking right in the Alpha’s eyes, daring him to back down, “Have you ever before?”

 

“No,” was the reply, hesitant, like he was afraid of being rebuffed.

 

Gabriel didn’t expect anything less.  Few Alphas were inclined to let someone else on top of them.  Yet here they were.

 

He didn’t relent, “It will hurt.  You’re not built to take it easy.”  The ‘ _like I am’_ lingered in the air between them.

 

Jack had pinked further, but the only thing he had to say was, “I miss you.”

 

The Omega would be lying if the idea of an Alpha spreading his legs for him wasn’t one of the hottest things he’d ever heard.  The fact that it was Jack? His Jack? The father of his only born child offering himself up? He couldn’t tell if the fire was racing faster to his loins or his heart.  That the golden boy could see him sweaty, jet-lagged, irrationally annoyed, and haunted and still beg for him, call him his partner? Damn him for a fool, but how could he possibly turn him away?

 

He couldn’t hear the screaming anymore, just the thunder of Jack’s heart in counterpoint to his own.  

 

With pointed slowness, he peeled off his gloves, let the leather drop to the floor.  He lifted a hand and tipped Jack’s chin up with one scarred knuckle, feeling how easily his lover yielded, “ _Amante…_ ”

 

Without the desperation of an unfortunately timed heat rushing him through his paces, he slowly reeled his golden lover in, pressing his wind-chapped lips against Jack’s, savouring the taste of him.  The younger man’s hands settled on his waist, pressing in against muscle, grounding him in the here and the now.  He didn’t even have to coerce, Jack’s lips opening up to him easy as breathing.  He slipped his tongue inside, growling softly when Jack pushed back, following his lead, but still an active participant.  This wasn’t some noble sacrifice he was making for the sake of his Omega’s pride.  He WANTED Gabriel like this.

 

Gabriel pulled away from the kiss, nipping at the corner of his mouth, trailing love bites to the hinge of his jaw.  He dropped wet kisses against the pale column of his throat, tracing a line of fire down until he found the bonding bite, rubbing his scruff against it affectionately while the blonde man rolled his head to the side, gasping and sighing every time lips or teeth found a new patch of skin to explore, to lavish attention on.  He was already breathing hard, hands trailing up from Gabriel’s waist to dig into his shoulders.  Gabriel bit down hard at the juncture of his throat, sucking a bruise there until his mate was shivering against him.

 

He pulled away with a wet sound, pupils blown, just looking at Jack, thumbing the new mark, pressing down so he could _feel_ it, “ _Tan bonito.  Eres mio._ Stay.”

 

Carefully, he pulled away, stepping back near the bed so he was sure Jack could see him.  With aching slowness, he disrobed.  He did it inch by torturous inch, letting his mate agonize over every newly revealed expanse of dark, chocolate toned skin.  He didn’t play coy, didn’t tease, didn’t pause.  He just let Jack watch, let him see what he had done to him.  Gabriel felt a swoop of power in his belly when he looked into the younger man’s eyes, barely able to see the blue anymore around his lust-blown pupils.  Fuck.

 

He revealed his manhood last, sliding his boxer briefs down slowly until the only thing between him and his mate was air and Jack’s own clothing.  He sidled up close, let the Alpha feel the size of him, the weight and the heat.

 

He leaned into his ear, mouthing at the shell of it and murmuring hot against it, “Do you still want this?”

 

Jack, utterly incapable of doing anything in half measures, just looked at him helplessly and whined deep in his chest, “I love you.”

 

Gabriel reeled, breath hitching.

 

He moved back to sit on the bed, staring his mate down like a hunting panther, “Then strip and come here.”

 

He watched Jack’s adam’s apple bob against the thin skin of his throat before he was stripping himself of his clothing with far less care than the Omega had done.  He threw each shed garment into a heap at the side as if they had offended him.  In no time at all, he stood exposed before his mate’s scrutiny, naked as the day he’d been born, shivering and overstimulated like a newborn foal in the open air of their room.  He took a few halting steps towards where his mate sat, unsure of where to go next.

 

Knowing the steps to this dance far better than his partner, Gabriel chuckled rough and throaty, “You white boys, no sense of rhythm.”

 

His strong hands snaked up and he grabbed a hold of Jack’s hips, pulling him in and guiding him to kneel up on the bed and in the muscled expanse of his lap.  The Omega groaned at the heat, indulging himself long enough to lean forward and kiss his way down the platinum trail of hair between Jack’s navel and groin, getting him warm and relaxed.  He stroked his mate’s flanks, almost choking on his want.

 

Jack blinked at him, owlish, “Like this?”

 

“Mmm _si, mi amor_ , gentler for your first time this way...and I get to watch you,” he grinned, all teeth,  “Hand me the bottle.”

 

Gabriel purred when Jack obeyed, leaning to the side towards the table, watching the shift of muscles in his belly while he moved.  The golden boy was always pretty, fighting or fucking.

 

He had his mate pour some of the lube over his dark, thick fingers, settling his other hand on the jut of a pale hip, soothing when he reached between those splayed legs, “Breathe.”

 

Sly, the Omega leaned forward to suck at a rosy nipple at the same moment he touched the tightly furled muscle between Jack’s cheeks, distracting him enough that he only jumped a little at the strange sensation.  He rubbed at the muscle in strong circles, massaging it, getting familiar, making himself welcome, banishing the strangeness of the new touch while Jack huffed in his lap.  The Alpha shifted, unsure whether he wanted to straddle further or close up his legs.  Gabriel made the choice for him, biting gently at the nipple and holding his hip, pushing the tip of one finger in.

 

Jack grunted, tried to tense while his mate murmured calming nonsense against his pectoral.

 

“Feels weird,” the Alpha murmured.

 

“It’s going to.  Just breathe.  You don’t make your own slick, so I’ve got to open you up.  Don’t want to hurt  you.”

 

The little maniac grinned slightly, giddy from overload, his breath hiccuping as Gabriel pressed his finger in further, “What if I like it?”

 

Smirking, Gabe jerked his finger in the rest of the way, making his mate yelp in shock, his hands flying up to grip the back of the Omega’s shorn head.

 

“There’s sexy pain and then there’s pain, _amante_.  Now, shut up and let me work.”

 

He opened him as promised, slow and as sweet as a man like Gabriel Reyes could manage.  He paused at every wince, petting his lover from the inside until he gentled again, stopped clenching and allowed more in.  The room fell into its own cadence, music falling from Jack’s lips in whimpers and punched out gasps.  The tune found layers in the way his knees shifted restlessly in their sheets, in the wet sounds between his legs, in the soft whisper of Gabe’s lips kissing over his twitching belly.  It was the most fucking beautiful thing Gabriel Reyes had ever heard.

 

At least until he found that spot deep inside Jack, pressing down hard on it.  It was inhuman the sound the Alpha made, back arching and eyes staring at nothing.  

 

Gabriel relented and his lover collapsed against him like a puppet with cut strings.

 

He laughed and kissed the side of that golden head, “Good, huh? Are you ready, _mi amor_?”

 

Dazed from pleasure, Jack could only nod and Gabriel claimed his mouth before he had a chance to think too hard about what was coming next.  He fisted a sheen of lube over his erection and nudged Jack’s legs a little wider to receive him before guiding the head up against the relaxed ring of his mate’s ass.  He waited for the blonde to exhale before pushing in.  

 

He kept his eyes open while they kissed, watching the other man’s brow furrow in discomfort.  Gabriel smoothed a thumb over the lines that formed there, whispering against the corner of his mouth and trying not to lose himself in the dizzying heat between Jack’s thighs.  He fought hard not to thrust upwards and sink himself all the way in.  He resisted the urge to bare his teeth and tip the Alpha onto his back, thrust deeply into him until neither of them could tell where one ended and the other began.  Jack was still so agonizingly tight and while inflicting pain was a certain forte of his, Gabe wouldn’t hurt his partner for his own selfish pleasure.  Instead, he held perfectly still.

 

“Sink down when you’re ready for more,” he crooned rubbing circles into the crests of Jack’s hips.

 

They moved in fits and starts like that.  Jack taking as much as he could bear and then pausing, his hips giving tiny abortive flicks as his body decided what to do with the invasion.  For all that he was a sinner, Gabriel had the patience of a saint, letting the other man take his time and relishing every new inch he gained inside of his mate.  He’d never been a religious man, but he was pretty sure he saw God when the Alpha finally settled all the way into his lap.  Suddenly, he was balls deep in the vice of Jack’s body, their foreheads pressed together while they panted, breathing each other’s air.  Jack still had his hands buried in the short scruff of his hair, holding on like he’d be lost if he let go.

 

“How is it?” Gabriel purred, kissing his forehead.

 

“I...full.  I don’t…burns” Jack babbled, overwhelmed and trying to find words for something so few Alphas indulged in.

 

Grinning cheshire against his eyebrow, Gabe said, “Shhh.  Let me show you something.”

 

He used his grip on Jack’s hips to tilt him just so before thrusting carefully _in_ where he remembered he’d found that little spot before with his fingers.  In his lap, the Alpha sobbed, clawing at the back of his neck, overwhelmed by sensation.  It was too much all at once, like putting your hand too close to the fire on a cold day and he almost wanted to curl away from it, but he was unable to escape when the signals came from so deep within him.  He panted like a greyhound, his knees gone out from under him and legs boneless.

 

“Again…” he huffed when he had breath enough to muster speech.

 

“Dance with me, then,” the Omega said, digging his fingers into the muscles of Jack’s ass, helping him ride his cock, going slow so he could aim for that little spot every time, make his mate clench around him.

 

The sex was slow and sensual, the older man rolling up into his mate every time he lowered him back down, not so much thrusting as undulating.  Neither of them were going to last long, overwrought by a passion they’d indulged so little in between them.  Gabriel never once closed his eyes, no matter how good the feeling, unable to bring himself to miss a single second of pale, golden Jack writhing in his lap, arching his back, taking his manhood like it was all he wanted, welcoming Gabriel inside him on every stroke and answering back in time, pushing back as if he could take more in by sheer force of will.  He was going to come like this, wrapping his arms tight around Jack’s comparatively slim waist to hold him still, holding him in place.

 

“Fuck,” Jack cried out like a prayer, locking his arms around Gabriel’s broad shoulders when he felt the end nearing, driven inexorably to orgasm with his cock pressed against the Omega’s muscled stomach.

 

Delirious in the throes of pleasure, Jack ran his knuckles over what parts of his mate’s flexing stomach he could reach, “I...I love these…”

 

His words caught on every thrust.  

 

For a single moment Gabriel let his attention shift, looked down to see what had so captivated Jack.  He was surprised to see the pad of a heavily calloused thumb rubbing affectionate circles over the silver-traced lines of a stretch mark.  After having Ira, Gabe had been quick to shed the weight, burning off the excess in training as soon as he could move comfortably again.  He'd pushed his body from one extreme to the other, accepting no less than his all.  These stripes were the only evidence that remained of his pregnancy.  They didn’t hurt and after eight months he could pretty much ignore them.  They were just a part of him.  Apparently, a part that his little _chico de oro_ couldn’t keep his hands off of.  

 

Losing his rhythm, Gabriel thrust up once, hard, and watched as Jack bit his lip bloody around the sensation, clenching down around him.  That was all it took before he was sinking his teeth into the other man’s shoulder, filling his willing body with seed.  Jack let out a thready whimper at the feeling.  The Omega leaned up to kiss him, fisting a hand around his sex and stroking him to completion, marveling in the way Jack’s body convulsed, toes curling until the sinews in them cracked.  He came with a grimace that his mate couldn’t help but kiss off of his face, laying them both down gently on the bed without withdrawing, letting them both come down in the afterglow, covered in sweat with his head blessedly silent.

 

Gabriel nosed up behind Jack’s ear with an only half-there, “...I missed you too.”

 

***

 

The Omega woke in the small hours of the morning, wrapped around his slumbering mate with screaming in his ears and blood in his nose, the stink of offal overpowering the warm, sleepy scent of home.  Peace never lasted long for men like them.  Carefully, Gabriel uncurled from Jack’s back, dropping a small kiss on the golden hair before sliding out of bed.  In total silence, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old shirt, padding over to the door.  He didn’t look back as he slipped out into the hall.

 

Behind him, Jack rolled onto his back in the bed, awake the minute there had been movement.  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, not resenting waking up to the feeling of Gabriel leaving him.  It was just who they were, not built to cling and fawn.  His heart felt surprisingly light given the circumstances.

 

After all, he didn’t mind Gabriel leaving.  He just liked reminders that he wasn’t gone for good.

 

__________

 

_Grow Into It_

 

There were a lot of things McCree had expected when he’d joined up with Blackwatch.  

 

The hazing on the team had barely been a blip on his radar.  Half the shady shit they got up to, likewise.  He’d even expected the likes of their commander, that hard-nosed, dead-eyed son-of-a-bitch Reyes.  It was hard to rattle young buck like Jesse McCree, especially one who’d run with the Deadlocks for as long as he had.  You know one gang, you know ‘em all, and what was Blackwatch but a UN sanctioned gang? It had been par for the course in fancy-ass uniforms and brother, that suited McCree just fine.  Better the devil you knew than a cell for the rest of his natural born days.  Same shit, different day and all that.

 

‘Course, that wasn’t to say his new life hadn’t come with a few surprises.

 

After all, show him the man who moseyed around expecting to get his arm shot clean off and he’d show you a man who needed a whiff of fresh air, a whiskey, and Jesus.

 

Mccree still didn’t exactly recall how he’d gone and lost the damn thing.  Oh sure, there had been violence involved, of that much he was certain, but the rest was a muddle of chaos.  He had snatched of memory, seeing the thing hanging by a thread from the elbow, more like a butcher shop cast-off than something that had once been a functioning appendage.  He knew he’d been rescued at the very least, which would definitely explain why he was currently lying in a sterile Meb Bay bed than in a South American gutter.  Small miracles.

 

The second surprise was that this hard-edged pack of assholes went and had themselves a pretty-as-a-picture doc.  Why, Jesse had half a mind to lay on the old silver-tongue charm and see if he got lucky, but too bad for old hang-dog McCree, this didn’t seem to be the good doc’s first time at the rodeo.  He’d given it the old college try while she was looking over the stitches, voice all warm whiskey and hot promises, and she’d _accidentally_ prodded a bit too hard at the tender skin around his healing wound.  The apologetic smile she’d given him told him perfectly well she knew what he was up to and reminded him without words that she probably wasn’t in any sort of mood.  After that she’d been all sunshine and warmth, of course.

 

Maybe she wasn’t quite as out of place as McCree had initially thought.  

 

She’d taken some scans and excused herself from his ward to go and study them without a cheeky cowboy using her as a handy distraction from his boredom.  

 

Who could blame a fella for getting a little antsy? He’d been here conscious for a week and who knew how much longer before that while he’d been unconscious.  He’d tried to sidle on out the day before, but as it turned out, he was under strict orders to remain so Angela could get him fitted with a working prosthetic.  Only _then_ would Reyes “deal with the likes of him running underfoot” again.  

 

Speaking of a whiskey and some Jesus, there was a fella who needed all that and then some.

 

Jesse sighed and let his head flop back against the pillow, wanting to run a hand through his hair to get the lank brown mop out of his eyes.  He restrained himself, a little nervous that he’d forget again and try with the hand he was currently minus.  Last time he’d done that, it had triggered at least an hour’s worth of phantom pains.  He wasn’t eager for a repeat performance, so he settled for making a game of trying to blow the hair from his face, staring at the blank ceiling and wondering if he should make a point system.

 

“Did it hurt?”

 

The cowboy sat up sharply, propping himself up on his good (only) arm and staring over the edge of the bed.

 

Well damn.

 

Cue surprise number three.

 

Standing there staring at him was a kid.  Lord, but he was tiny, a snip of a thing with wide eyes that seemed to take up half of his face.  He was mixed heritage as far as McCree could tell at first blush, a bit of Castilian coloring mixed in with the white of his skin.  It flowed up into the rich dark cacao of his hair, little curls showing up here and there from what had probably once been a orderly high-and-tight.  All of this was secondary to the fact that there was a kid in the Med Bay.  Hell, there was a kid just standing there right smack in the middle of Overwatch HQ.  How had he even gotten in here? Rugrat was knee-high to a grasshopper without supervision anywhere.

 

Little fella was still staring at him.

 

Looking around and seeing no one, Jesse turned back to the kid, “Hey there, kiddo, where’d you wander in from?”

 

Kid frowned a bit and Jesse realized he’d been asked a question.  Little guy was probably sore about not getting an answer.  

 

That was one of the funny things about kids.  They were completely ignorant to their own peculiarities and improbabilities, their tiny minds ridiculously well-ordered and linear in their own strange ways.  A plus B always equaled C to a kid, nevermind the unicorn you sometimes had to ride to get there.  They accepted the weirdness of life as given and it got them all in a knot when the grown-ups who had long ago learned to question couldn’t quite keep up.  Jesse knew the drill.  A passel of little sisters had taught him better before he’d up and gotten the hell out of Dodge.

 

He eased his legs over the side of the bed so he could square up to the kiddo, “Did it hurt? I reckon so.”

 

“You gonna get a new one?” The kid asked and Jesse raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out where the hell that accent came from.

 

“Yup,” McCree popped the ‘P’ lazily, “The good doc’s gonna fix me right up.”

 

That intense stare again.  Jesse stared right back, one eyebrow cocked up damn near to his hairline.

 

“Y’alright there, kiddo?”

 

“Are you a cowboy?” the little boy asked, pointing almost imperiously towards the bedside table.

 

Jesse’s hat (the one he insisted on) was sitting there, edges all worn from too many years under the sun and wind.  Well shoot.  Mighty nice to know he hadn’t lost it.  One of the fellas must have brought it in while he was sleeping or in another room with the doc.  He’d plumb gone and missed it.  

 

A thought occurred to him and McCree decided to have a little bit of fun.  

 

He leveled a sly smirk at the kid, pointing a finger gun in his direction, “And what if I am, partner?”

 

Those big ‘ole blue eyes sparkled with delight, a tiny smile tucked into the corner of the kid’s mouth, “...Cool.”

 

It got a laugh out of McCree and he slapped his knee, almost overbalancing without his other arm to compensate.  Getting his wind back, he reached up for the hat and settled it down onto the little fella’s head, watching the brim slip down over his eyes.  Kid looked so damn pleased about it, pushing it back a little so he could see.  Jesse leaned back on his hand again.

 

“Who do you belong to then, huh, partner?”

 

The pretty lady doc bustled in, breaking the moment and sighing with relief the minute she saw the little boy in the oversized cowboy hat, “There you are, Ira.  Forgive me, Agent McCree, I didn’t mean to let him disturb you.”

 

“Ain’t a thing to worry about, doc.  Best company I’ve had in awhile excludin’ your pretty self.  Didn’t figure you for mated though,” Jesse waved off her concern with a roguish grin.

 

“That is because I am not,” the blonde woman answered primly, breezing over to look him over, making sure he hadn’t magically injured himself by _sitting up in bed,_ “I am minding him for a friend.”

 

“Friend, huh?” He asked.

 

The door to the Med Bay hissed followed by the sound of heavy boots.  Lord in heaven, but it was a busy day today.  Jesse perked up at the gruff voice that followed.

 

“Dr. Ziegler?”

 

Jesus H. Christ in a Ford pick-up.  No less than Commander Gabriel Reyes showing up on their humble doorstep now.  Jesse wondered who he should expect next; the President or the Pope.

 

The dark-skinned man walked back, all muscle and attitude and McCree felt himself get a little tense.  So far, the man had only come into the clinic to speak to him three times.  The first was to make sure he wasn’t dead, and Jesse was pretty sure that was as close to ‘touching’ as conversations with Reyes ever got unless he had his hands around your throat.  The second time was to bitch him out for being a  _bastardo estupido_ and losing his arm.  The third was to sit down with him and get a series of arduous and mind-numbing formal reports about the incident and the medical treatments that would follow.  Jesse still wasn’t sure which one had freaked him out the worst.

 

Surprise number four came when the kid lit up like a damn Christmas tree.

 

The rugrat charged across the floor just in time for Reyes to _kneel down_ and hold his arms out, the kid’s happy shout of, “ _Mama!_ ” ringing out.

 

McCree looked owl-eyed at Angela, wondering if she was experiencing the same weird-ass hallucination he was, or if he was really watching snake-eyed Commander Reyes sweeping the small child up in a hug.  When the good doctor only looked mildly amused, he realized he _was_ watching Gabriel Reyes set the happy little boy on his hip with one smooth practiced motion.  The Commander cocked his head when he noticed the hat, turning a hawkish glare on Jesse in time to catch him staring.

 

“Problem, Agent McCree?”

 

McCree’s back straightened so quick he could hear his spine click, “No sir.”

 

Reyes snorted and reached up to pluck the hat off of the kid’s head, dropping a kiss on his forehead, “Let’s give this back to Agent McCree, _mijo_.  We don’t know where it’s been.”

 

He thumped the hat down a little more firmly than necessary on the agent’s head and turned to go, listening to the excited chatter of his son in the half-fascinated way of parents.  It was the kind of interest where you could only sort of understand about 50% of the rapid-fire babble that came out of a child’s mouth, but you lent them an ear, happy your kid was happy even if you never could never understand what about.    Here McCree thought his new Commander was the sort of guy to eat children, not cart them around on his hip, much less one he’d _made._ Learn somethin’ new every day, he guessed.

 

The young agent looked at Angela, bewildered, and she only offered him a beatific smile, her eyes knowing, “Come now, I need to talk to you about implanting neural connectors for your new arm.”

 

A gentle enough dismissal of the subject, but Jesse McCree was a stubborn man.

 

***

 

Ira got a new cowboy hat from an anonymous source for his fifth birthday with a little note pinned to the brim that said ‘He’ll grow into it’.

 

Jesse couldn’t help but notice how Reyes was just a little less sharp around him in the years that followed, easing enough to be both comrade and Commander.  Don’t get him wrong, the older man could still be a raging asshole on the very best of days, especially towards the end, but there was something almost paternal about the way he insulted Jesse’s mother after that.  The cowboy had gone from being a useful nuisance to an asset who was looked out for, even if grudgingly.

 

So yeah, there were a lot of things Jesse McCree had expected when he’d taken Blackwatch over prison.

 

Feeling wanted hadn’t been one of them.

  


____________

_Author’s Notes_

 

  * __This whole chapter sort of took me by surprise.  It was meant to be three parts: a quick interlude between Gabe and Jack, how Ira got his hat, and then the final fight before they sent Ira away.  In the end, the interlude turned into a Feels Trip and I couldn’t bring myself to write out the fight.  Best laid plans, I guess.__


  * _Ira is four at the time of “Grow Into It”._


  * _I wanted “Do Not Disturb” to start examining the effects of Darkwatch on Gabriel’s brain.  He’s always been a violent man in this canon, but torture and murder are new enough to leave serious mental scars.  I also wanted a moment to explore Gabe and Jack’s relationship dynamic.  I can’t say I’m unhappy with how it turned out._


  * _Angela is more or less Ira’s godmother in this canon._


  * _This will probably be the last installment of B-Sides I write for awhile.  I’ll probably focus on the future of this canon next._


  * _Once again, every comment I get is pure love.  You, OverNerds, are part of the reason I love this fandom.  I’m lucky to have each and every reader, both vocal and not._



___Shitty Translations (Big thank you to Iron_Huntress for cleaning up my broken Spanish)_ _ _

____\- Lo siento, nino bonito: Sorry, pretty boy_ _ _ _

_____\- Chico de oro - Golden boy_ _ _ _ _

______\- Mi amor - my love_ _ _ _ _ _

_______\- Amante - lover_ _ _ _ _ _ _

________\- Tan bonito - So pretty_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________\- Eres mio - You're mine_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________\- Bastardo estupido - stupid asshole_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

 


End file.
